Social Web IPOs

Looks like Zynga's IPO day didn't start a social web frenzy (down 7.8% as of now). The broad market certainly was no help here. Quite a pattern is forming with Pandora, Groupon, Linkedin, and Renren. None of these led to an unqualified success, and most of them are doing quite poorly especially if one bought at the open of the first day. Those who bought at the IPO price did considerably better for each of those 3 names. Groupon and Pandora debuted last month and in June respectively. Linkedin and Renren debuted in May.

Stock	IPO Price	First Day Opening	12/16 Mid-Day Return from IPO	12/16 Mid-Day Return from First Day Open
P	16	20	-35%	-48%
GRPN	20	28	11.3%	-20.5%
LNKD	45	83	44.7%	-21.5%
RENN	14	19.5	-75.6%	-82.5%

Over the same period (starting from May 4, 2011), the S&P 500 dipped 10.5%, considerably less than the return if one purchased starts at the open on the first day of trading. The FPX (First Trust IPO-100 Index ETF) returned -10.6% over that period, so roughly inline with the large-cap market, but this is because its constituents includes many long-running large companies such as Visa, Philip Morris, Lorillard, Kinder Morgan, and Dollar General.